Opinion
Consumers should not have had to actively provide their personal data in return for digital content to be supplied to them to benefit from consumer protection rights relating to the supply of that content, a committee of MEPs has said.
A new directive on contracts for the supply of digital content was proposed by the European …

Apple has requested that the Irish High Court hurry up in hearing a legal challenge by three objectors to its €850m data centre investment in Athenry, Galway.
The Cupertino-based business, whose intellectual property is held in one of its Irish companies, is hoping to avoid the delays of a judicial review, according to The …

NetSuite closed in typical fashion what promised to be the final quarter before it is subsumed by Oracle - growth in turnover continued, as did operating overheads and losses.
The cloudy ERP firm reported Q3 results for the period ended September, while reiterating it will not give guidance for the fourth quarter and has …

Microsoft's attempt to re-write one of cricket's oddest rules has been rejected by its statistical guardian.
This story starts with India's mania for cricket and especially one-day and Twenty20 cricket*. When matches in those abbreviated forms of the game are interrupted by weather, a formula called “The Duckworth Lewis Method …

+Comment
A homeless IT consultant will learn today whether his challenge to a draconian order, which forces him to tell police in advance if he is going to have sex, will succeed.
John O'Neill, 45, must tell the cops 24 hours in advance even if he only plans on “kissing” or engaging in “sexually explicit conversation” – but has never …

US cable provider Cox has to pay $25m to music publisher BMG for failing to crack down on its subscribers' music piracy.
This week, the Eastern Virginia District Court has tossed out [PDF] Cox's appeal of a jury verdict awarding the damages to BMG after deciding that Cox had failed to properly act on warnings that its users …

Interview
It has been four years since Shaul Jolles, as CEO of Dot Registry, filed applications for five new internet extensions – .corp, .inc, .llc, .llp and .ltd – and wrote a check for just under $1m to have them considered by domain name system overseer ICANN.
Unlike the other applicants for the three US corporate entity suffixes . …

FotW
An innocuous El Reg story about Russian web miscreants provoked an entirely unexpected reaction when an offended cyberpunk took it upon himself to tell us how the headline hurt his feelings.
The sensitive individual - who used the cock.li mail service - took objection to a piece entitled Oh deer.io: Cyberpunks using one-stop …

SpaceX has applied to local authorities for permission to build two new rocket landing pads in Florida ahead of the launch of its Falcon Heavy rocket later this year.
The Falcon Heavy consists of three modified Falcon 9 rockets strapped together – a more complex machine that Elon Musk describes as having a "heavy pucker factor …

Something for the Weekend, Sir?
"Kids tend to spend far too much of their childhood in an unproductive way," it says here.
I quite agree. It was the same when I was a child. All that counting numbers and spelling words they made me do over the years was a massive drain on my television-watching time.
"Research shows that children have an increasing problem …

A class of iPhone owners say that Apple has not lived up to its promise to reimburse customers for bricked handsets.
A filing [PDF] in the California Northern District Court seeks to move forward with a class action case against the Cupertino iPhone maker on behalf of customers whose phones were locked when a February firmware …

The Home Office has issued guidance demanding that immigration detainees are provided with internet access so they can maintain “links with friends, families and legal representatives and to prepare for removal.”
Publishing Detention Services Order 04/2016 (PDF) the Home Office has responded to an independent review into the …

The Netherlands' Data Protection Authority has decided that even with consent, companies shouldn't use fitness trackers to monitor their employees.
Its argument is that there's an asymmetry between employer and employee that's likely to make staff feel they need to say “yes” if the boss starts handing out Fitbits (or whatever …

Big Money has poisoned the utopia of the sharing economy, says the millionaire supermodel and “social entrepreneur” Lily Cole.
Once upon a time, unicorns grazed innocently over websites like Cole’s own Impossible.com, the “gift economy” website that was powered only by love (and a gift from taxpayers).
Contributors were happy …

An independent review into the welfare of immigration detainees has suggested that current restrictions on internet access – including preventing access to immigration claims help sites, and blanket bans on Skype and Facebook – are irrational and counter-productive.
The 349-page review (PDF) by Stephen Shaw, the former prisons …

The internet community has published the key details of its plan to improve accountability at the domain-name overseer ICANN when it takes control of the critical IANA contract next year.
That's the contract that gives ICANN the reins to the planet's DNS, IP address allocation, and the nitty-gritty details of today's …

Something for the Weekend, Sir?
I enjoy travel but I do not fly well – especially if the aeroplane’s wings are rusted, the tail has been attached with vinegar and brown paper, and the undercarriage is still sitting in the ditch it fell into at the end of the departure airport’s runway some 300 miles away.
As you might have guessed, I am a big fan of the TV …

The key to the digital future is about data integrity, not data confidentiality.
So says Toomas Hendrik Ilves, President of Estonia, who flew into San Francisco Thursday morning to address an internet summit hosted by CloudFlare.
"I have AB blood," he said by way of example. "I don't particularly care that people know that. …

Worstall @ the Weekend
Phillip from London writes in to note that I'm really not a fan of the minimum wage. So, given that we don't want the poor starving in the streets, or that we might actually think there is some minimum income that a rich country should provide just because, what's the recommended Worstall method of achieving this?
To which the …

The plan to shift control of the top level of the internet away from the US government to domain name overseer ICANN has been given a tentative thumbs-up by the internet community.
A public comment period on the proposal for the IANA functions contract closed earlier this week with 159 submissions received. Just under half the …

Twitter has lifted one of its basic rules: the 140-character limit on messages sent with the service.
The financially-flustered micro-blogging platform today announced that the 140-character ceiling has been removed for direct messages, the peer-to-peer missives members can send each other without the rest of the world being …

An Australian Department of Defence worker faces trial for allegedly posting a classified file on oddball message board 4chan.
Michael Scerba, 24, is charged with “unauthorised access to or modification of restricted data," and "disclosure of information by a Commonwealth officer.”
On Thursday, Fairfax Media reported that …

A Samsung exec has vowed to offer up a "big" win in the company's "war" against shouty investment firm Elliot, as the battle hots up over its objection to Sammy's imminent merger.
In May, Sammy announced its merger with fashion, leisure and construction biz Cheil Industries, a company in which the tech giant already owns a …

Sprint says America's new net neutrality rules – which kicked in last week – have forced it to stop throttling download hogs' mobile broadband connections.
Everything's fine, though, the US telco insists: it turns out this traffic strangling wasn't really needed in the first place.
Sprint, the third-largest carrier in America …

Google has sold its rights to all internet addresses ending in ".car" to a joint partnership of two other registry operators.
The deal, for an undisclosed sum, confirms what many in the industry have suspected for some time: that the search giant is concentrating on its brand names and is offloading generic names, despite …

Worstall on Wednesday
So, the EU Commission is going to call Google in and give it a really hard talking to for offering what Google's users rather like to have. And if they decide that, well, Google has been giving the consumers what the consumers desire, good and hard, then they're going to fine the Chocolate Factory up to 10 per cent of global …

Apple insists its top execs were not aware of the employee wage-fixing pact Steve Jobs apparently had between his Silicon Valley rivals.
Apple stockholder R. Andre Klein is suing the iPhone giant's CEO Tim Cook, a handful of its directors and the Jobs' estate, on behalf of the company's shareholders, claiming the top brass …

The world's governments are revealing their egos and priorities by vetoing short domain names.
After a row between DNS overseer ICANN and nation states, government officials have been given veto rights over two-letter domain names used with dot-word gTLDs.
For example, Italy, which operates .it, doesn't want anyone buying it. …

Analysis
Domain-name overseer ICANN is facing widespread criticism after it emerged victorious from an independent review into its decision over the top-level domain .hotels.
Despite winning, the ruling [PDF] has put a spotlight on the systems that are supposed to hold ICANN to account. Not only are the mechanisms inadequate, it's …

After much debate and a seven-city tour of Europe, Google’s self-appointed advisory board has finally published its opinion on the so-called “right to be forgotten”.
Last May, Google was ordered to remove links to “outdated or irrelevant” information about a Spanish individual by the European Court of Justice. Since then, …

QuoTW
This was the week Google's Youtube got caught out at its own game, when a classical musician had the temerity to record the company's bullying tactics and post the evidence online.
Zoë Keating told fans that YouTube had given her an offer she couldn't refuse: if she didn't sign Google's new terms, it would stop paying her but …

Exclusive
Hundreds of thousands of NHS patients who opted out of having their details shared with private companies under the controversial Care.data scheme would not be invited to a number of cancer-related screenings – a terrible effect of the gaffe-ridden scheme.
Care.data intends to extract GP information and share it with third …

An, er, enterprising individual has attempted to register the phrase “Je Suis Charlie” as a trademark in Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands.
The Benelux Trademarks Office told El Reg on Tuesday that it had received an application in Dutch to register the slogan just one day after the staff of Charlie Hebdo were murdered …

America's assistant commerce secretary Larry Strickling has told domain-name overlord ICANN that without improvements to its accountability the US government will not hand over the crucial IANA contract.
IANA is the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority, a department of ICANN that oversees the DNS system keeping the internet …

The FBI has made it no secret that it hates Apple and Google's efforts to encrypt files in your smartphones and tablets.
Now court documents have emerged showing just how far the Feds are willing to go to decrypt citizens' data.
The paperwork has shown two cases where federal prosecutors have cited the All Writs Act – which …

Verizon's recently acquired content delivery network EdgeCast has been blocked in China the day before the country hosts the World Internet Conference.
The US telco confirmed on Monday that its service had been subjected to censorship in the People's Republic.
EdgeCast said in a statement on its website that it was the latest …

Australia's government has tabled its data retention Bill and outlined a willingness to assist carriers and internet service providers (ISPs) pay for their retention rigs.
The Bill also explains a little about how retention rigs will need to be constructed and anoints the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) as …

Something for the Weekend, Sir?
Oh bloody hell, grandma, what have you done this time?
“I thought that was obvious. It’s your birthday. I bought you a CD.”
A CD? That’s so uncool. So unhip. Are you, like, square?
“I remembered you used to like music when you were a student. Have you gone off it?”
You no’ down wit’ da word, daddio. Grannio. CD is old. Is …

IBM's SoftLayer public cloud branch has flicked the switch on Intel's Trusted Execution (TXT) Technology, allowing users of its service to guarantee their code runs on identifiable servers.
TXT allows users to validate a machine's BIOS and hardware state, handy tricks because it means software can be tuned so it will only run on …

Analysis
More allegations have emerged of dodgy tactics on the part of car ride app Uber and rival Lyft – this time relating to so-called "brand ambassadors".
Glossy gadget blog The Verge obtained and published the handbook Uber contractors allegedly follow to woo Lyft drivers, under something called Operation SLOG. Whether this is …

Dinner Party Punchup
The following stories have one thing in common. Can you guess what it is around the dinner table this evening with your friends?
Last week Samsung announced the acquisition of a crowd-funded startup called SmartThings for $200m. USA Today wrote that the deal “has also once again validated the power of crowdsourcing platform …

Updated
Microsoft filed a lawsuit against Samsung in a US court on Friday, claiming the Korean firm was in breach of an earlier cross-licensing agreement relating to Android technology patents.
The two companies sealed their licensing deal in 2011, back in the days when Microsoft was threatening to sue all and sundry over patents …

A US judge is reportedly worried about the settlement for tech workers in the no-hire pact lawsuit in Silicon Valley.
Judge Lucy Koh has to approve the $324m payout from Apple, Google, Intel and Adobe, after employees sued the four firms along with Pixar, Lucasfilm and Intuit over an alleged conspiracy to keep wages down by …

Best of breed versus integrated multi-function solutions – it’s a discussion that’s been going on in IT for about 3 decades. Whether the debates occur in the context of software suites, hardware/software appliances, or complete pre-engineered system stacks, there are always vigorous advocates arguing the case for each approach …

AusCERT
Sarong-clad anti-coal hippies have been marked as a chief threat to online voting at the election scheduled to take place in 2015 in the Australian state of New South Wales (NSW).
The protestors are identified as a threat in a report penned by CSC for the NSW government. The Reg has seen a copy of the report, which suggests …

Video service Netflix has officially come out in opposition of a potential merger between Comcast and Time Warner.
The company said in its latest earnings report that the potential for a combined Comcast and Time Warner network would result in the extraction of "unprecedented fees" from Netflix and other streaming services.
" …

Apple has been rebuffed in its attempt to exclude Samsung testimony in the two firms' ongoing patent infringement case.
Judge Lucy Koh has struck down a request for relief filed by Cupertino's legal eagles in objection to comments made by Samsung relating to Apple's use of patents it has claimed Samsung infringes upon. The …

The grand finale of the Low Orbit Helium Assisted Navigator (LOHAN) saga is approaching, and is now so tantalisingly close you could almost reach out and stick a match to it.
It's been a long, winding road, to be sure, but we still have a few things to wrap before we can finally see what happens when you stick a rocket motor …

Smartphone owners should pay hundreds of dollars to the music industry, wrinkly French synth twiddler Jean Michel Jarre has said.
Without the ability to play music, Jarre argued, the gadget wouldn't be worth as much as it currently is.
“We should never forget that in the smartphone, the smart part is us creators,” Jarre told …

A mass mail out of leaflets providing information about NHS England's controversial medical records' plans are being fired off to households across the country from today.
The government said in October it was spending £1m on the pamphlets that - as we've previously reported - might be easily mistaken for junk mail as they are …